By a well-known argument, securities holders do not directly benefit from risk-reducing corporate diversification when they can replicate this difersification on their own. Some have argued that corporate diversification may be of value, or can otherwise be explained by, the agency relationship...

We examine situations in which a party must make a sunk investment prior to contracting with a second party to purchase an essential complementary input. We study how the resulting hold-up problem is affected by the seller's information about the investing party's likely returns from its...